The New Mexico Court of Appeals filed the split ruling on Tuesday after oral arguments in January. At issue is whether a 1963 law that makes it a fourth degree felony for “assisting suicide” is constitutional.

“We conclude that aid in dying is not a fundamental liberty interest under the New Mexico Constitution,” the opinion on Morris v. King states. The opinion allows the state to continue enforcing the law against aiding in dying.

The full ruling is available below.

A district court judge in Bernalillo County ruled in January of 2014 that there was a right for physicians to aid in dying in New Mexico. That received national attention as part of a push nationwide to allow those who are terminally ill to end their lives.

The next likely step is the state Supreme Court, which would likely make the final determination on the constitutionality of the law.

Laura Schauer Ives of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico argued the decision in court and said in a state after the decision that she was “disappointed” in the court ruling.

“We believe we have a strong case moving forward, and will be applying for cert in the New Mexico Supreme court where they will hopefully agree that mentally competent, terminally ill patients have the right to seek physician aid in dying if their suffering becomes unbearable,” Schauer Ives said.

The office of the Attorney General argued that this was something that should be handled by statute and the state legislature.

Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal group that filed a friend of the court brief with the state, hailed the decision.

“New Mexico law clearly criminalizes deliberate assistance in someone else’s suicide,” Alliance Defending Freedom Litigation Counsel Catherine Glenn Foster said in a statement. “The court was right to reverse the lower court’s decision which invented a right to doctor-prescribed death that does not exist. Families will now have the opportunity to honor and cherish their loved ones in their final days.”

The decision by the Court of Appeals means aid in dying is now legal in four states. Washington, Oregon and Vermont have the laws on the books, while a Montana Supreme Court decision allows it in the state. Hawaii has no law either way on the issue.

A bill to allow medical aid in dying is headed for a vote in the New Mexico House of Representatives after a committee of lawmakers on Wednesday tweaked the legislation, requiring a physician to be included among the two health care professionals needed to sign off on a terminally ill patient's decision to end their life. House Bill 90 has prompted some of the most emotional discussions of the legislative session, raising issues of life, death and the government's role in deeply personal medical decisions.

The case of a statue of the Ten Commandments in Bloomfield came to an end Monday, as the U.S. Supreme Court denied statue supporters’ an appeal to the high court. The city of Bloomfield was ordered by a federal district court to remove the monument in 2014, citing the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that ruling two years later, leaving the city’s final option to push for a U.S. Supreme Court hearing.

After almost two years of legal battles, the State of New Mexico agreed to settle a lawsuit filed against its Corrections Department. In 2015, six female employees at the state prison in Los Lunas sued the department, saying some of their male supervisors assaulted and sexually harassed them.

Holtec International was in the news last month when the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission denied requests from some groups to hold an additional hearing over the company’s license to build an interim storage site in southeastern New Mexico to hold nuclear waste from commercial power plants.

Matthew Reichbach is the editor of the NM Political Report. The former founder and editor of the NM Telegram, Matthew was also a co-founder of New Mexico FBIHOP with his brother and one of the original hires at the groundbreaking website the New Mexico Independent. Matthew has covered events such as the Democratic National Convention and Netroots Nation and formerly published, “The Morning Word,” a daily political news summary for NM Telegram and the Santa Fe Reporter.
Matthew has appeared as a panelist for the Society of Professional Journalists’ New Mexico Chapter’s panel on covering New Mexico politics and the legislature.
A native New Mexican from Rio Rancho, Matthew’s family has been in New Mexico since the 1600s.